VIDEO: Gyasi Zardes, Los Angeles Galaxy Even Score With Real Salt Lake

Jul 12, 2014; Carson, CA, USA; Los Angeles Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes (11) celebrates with midfielder Juninho (19) after scoring a goal in the first half against Real Salt Lake at StubHub Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Young forward Gyasi Zardes is slowly developing into the goalscoring machine that fans of Bruce Arena’s Los Angeles Galaxy are waiting for. On Saturday against Jeff Cassar’s Real Salt Lake, Zardes was the hero in the 20th minute with a shot that had some impressive English to it en route to a 1-0 victory at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.

Arena addressed the media regarding the team’s performance over the weekend.

Let’s now take a look at six things we learned, followed by player ratings, for the match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake.

1. Gyasi Zardes does it again

There is a reason why Gyasi Zardes will get a shot at taking it to the Portland Timbers Under-23s on All-Star Weekend. He is now scoring goals on a constant basis. Zardes stumbles on this goal, but the bend and the English on this makes this impressive. To be fair, Zardes should have earned at least a brace on Saturday, but the timing needs to be a little bit better. Take a look at Zardes’s fourth of the season.

“He is becoming a real player,” said midfielder Landon Donovan on Zardes. “All the exciting stuff is fun, and fun to watch, but he’s been effective now. Obviously teams put a lot of emphasis on Robbie and myself, and when he is getting chances, he is making them pay. So at some point, teams are going to have to start paying attention to him, and if they don’t, then he’ll just keep scoring.

“He is becoming a real player. All the exciting stuff is fun, and fun to watch, but he’s been effective now.” – Landon Donovan

“With young players, a lot of times you get a lot of excitement, a lot of talent, but you don’t get the end product all of the time. Part of becoming a mature player and a real professional is being effective; and he’s been effective. You don’t look at him and say he was the most exciting third on the field tonight, or he had all of these great chances, but he was effective, he ran hard, he defended well, he stretched them, put them under pressure, and when he got his chance to score, he scored and that’s all you can ask for.”

“He has the skills and the talent,” said defender A.J. DeLaGarza. “He can play in the midfield and up top. He is deadly, he is dangerous, and now he is scoring goals. He is coming to his own. I think right now he is pretty consistent, scoring goals, not too much you can ask for him right now.”

2. A shoddy performance from Los Angeles on offense

According to Donovan, the Galaxy were outplayed in terms of the stats (see below), but it was an otherwise passable result.

“We’ve played a number of games this year where we’ve dominated possession, dominated chances, and tied or lost,” Donovan told the press. “And it’s okay to have games like this during the year where the positives are the effort and the defending and the competitiveness.

“Tonight I thought that was excellent, were great too, I mean they played well too; give them a lot of credit. But we were smart enough to, not having a lot of the ball, but defend well and create a number of chances for ourselves. Jamie did well, the back four did well, and our only fault was not scoring another goal.”

“I think the most important is three points against a great team,” said Marcelo Sarvas, who was credited for the game-winning assist. “A team that plays very good with the ball; placements, same system for a long time, they know how to find the space to keep the ball. I think that’s the most important today. I think we could play better, but the most important are the three points.”

3. This game was won on defense, and almost no Leonardo

Leonardo did play in stoppage time as an extra defender, but pretty much the center-back pair of Tommy Meyer and DeLaGarza shouldered the load for the reeling Omar Gonzalez.

“We’re concentrating more, and we realize that every play matters,” said Donovan. “In all these games, we can’t shut off for five minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes; we can give up a goal if we don’t.

“There is something to be said for us being the only team in the league that’s lost three games now, and a lot of that goes down to our defending wall. When we concentrate over 90 minutes, we’re going to create chances. We create chances in every game we play; we never go through a game where we don’t create chances. So if we concentrate and focus for 90 minutes on every play, more often then, we’re not going to get scored on.”

“Tommy is good. We’ve played together for quite a while,” said DeLaGarza on Meyer. “He has been here for a couple of years so we know each other well. It takes chemistry to be two center backs who are working with each other and I think now we’ve been doing that pretty well. He is not giving up much, so that is good to see.”

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4. Goal positioning lacking for Real Salt Lake

A number of players for RSL saw their volleys either sail wide, sail over, or get saved by Jaime Penedo. The positioning of goalscoring opportunities is something Cassar stressed after the match.

“We just got to keep putting them in position,” said Cassar. “That’s the beauty of our team it doesn’t have to come from one certain area. But it is important that those guys get rewarded for some of the work that they are doing. Obviously, finishing off goals are important but we just got to continue doing a better job of getting them into the position and then seizing the opportunities.”

5. Los Angeles still can’t get their spot kick act together

Marcelo Sarvas will now have to think twice about trying a spot kick. In stoppage time, Nick Rimando made a save that wouldn’t have factored much in the big picture but still reinforced one of the Achilles heels of the Galaxy: penalty kicks.

“Last minute, Donovan let me kick the penalty,” said Sarvas of the blown chance for a #DosACero. “That happens; it is not the first one we lose of the season. I won’t ask anymore, I had my chance. But I’m just happy that we won. I think I could’ve scored, but Rimando had a good save; he moved pretty good in the line.”

Memo to Bruce: let Landon try. Thank you. Finally…

6. The outcome doesn’t change the Western Conference standings

Real Salt Lake remains second in the MLS Western Conference and the Los Angeles Galaxy remain sixth. However, the teams ranked second through seventh are only separated by five points. So is Rimando worried? No, not really.

“I’m not that really upset about the match,” said Rimando. “Obviously the result didn’t go our way but I thought we controlled the game and our possession was good. Our movement was good. We created a lot of chances but we just didn’t put them away and against these teams you have to put your chances away. Unfortunately we didn’t and the result stayed 1-0.

“It’s the second half of the season and we want to get as many points as we can. Away or home it doesn’t matter we are looking for results. Galaxy or another team we are trying to maximize on points and results and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that today.”

As for Cassar, he is also a stickler for parity. Aren’t we all, noble readers of the Plex?

“I like the team at the bottom beating the teams next to us,” said Cassar. I think almost every result besides ours went our way today, which is important. You’ve got to keep an eye on that. But if we play like this against Vancouver, we are going to win.

“If we had that same type of passion and commitment from our starting eleven and our substitution that came on and did a great job. Ned created some awesome chances. Garcia was threatening. Luke made couple of nice passes. Everything is right there, now it’s just putting them back together.”

Team Statistics

Los Angeles Galaxy Player Ratings

Jaime Penedo 8, A.J. DeLaGarza 7, Dan Gargan 7, Robbie Rogers 7, Tommy Meyer 7, Baggio Husidic 6, Juninho 6, Landon Donovan 6, Marcelo Sarvas 7.5, Gyasi Zardes 9, Robbie Keane 7, Stefan Ishizaki 3, Kenney Walker NR, Leonardo NR

Real Salt Lake Player Ratings

Nick Rimando 5.5, Chris Schuler 4, Chris Wingert 4, Nat Borcher 4, Tony Beltran 4, Javier Morales 5, John Stertzer 6, Kyle Beckerman 6, Luis Gil 4, Devon Sandoval 5, Joao Plata 6, Ned Grabavoy 5, Luke Mulholland 3, Olmes Garcia 2.5